Volume 431 — United States Reports

United States Trust Co. of New York v. New Jersey, 431 U.S. 1 (1977), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that the retroactive repeal of a statutory covenant that protected Port Authority bondholders violates the Contract Clause. An impairment of a state's own financial obligations is unconstitutional if it is not both reasonable and necessary to serve an important public purpose. The case was a major reiteration of the Contract Clause's importance after a long period in which it was largely ignored by the court.

At the arraignment of respondent, who had been indicted in North Carolina for various state criminal offenses, he entered a guilty plea to a single count of attempted safe… Held: In light of the nature of the record of the proceeding at which the guilty plea was accepted, and of the ambiguous status of the process of plea bargaining at the time the guilty plea was made, respondent's petition for a writ of habeas corpus should not have been summarily dismissed. Pp. 71-83.

Linmark Associates, Inc. v. Township of Willingboro, 431 U.S. 85 (1977), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States found that an ordinance prohibiting the posting of "for sale" and "sold" signs on real estate within the town violated the First Amendment to the United States Constitution protections for commercial speech.

The Illinois Driver Licensing Law authorizes the Secretary of State of Illinois to suspend or revoke a driver's license without preliminary hearing upon a showing by his records or other sufficient evidence that the driver's conduct falls into any of 18 enumerated categories, one of which is that the driver has been repeatedly convicted of offenses against traffic laws to a degree indicating "lack of ability to exercise ordinary and reasonable care in the safe operation of a…

Appellees, five mentally ill individuals who were between 15 and 18 years old at the time the complaint was filed, were the named plaintiffs in an action… Held: The enactment of the 1976 Act, which completely repealed and replaced the challenged provisions vis-a-vis the named appellees, clearly moots the claims of the named appellees, who are treated as adults totally free to leave the hospital and who cannot be forced to return unless they consent to do so. Pp. 128-129. 2.

Held: the evidence was plainly sufficient to prove that fact beyond a reasonable doubt. It is equally clear that the record requires us to conclude that the jury made such a finding. There can be no question about the fact that the jurors were informed that the case included a causation issue that they had to decide. The element of causation was stressed in the arguments of both counsel.

Held: 4 that, absent warnings, a witness is placed in the dilemma of engaging either in self-incrimination or perjury, a situation so inherently unfair as to *178 require suppression of perjured testimony. We reject both contentions. As our holding in Mandujano makes clear, and indeed as the Court of Appeals recognized, the Fifth Amendment privilege does not condone perjury.

Respondent, who was suspected, with others, of possible implication in a theft, was subpoenaed to appear as a witness before the District of Columbia grand jury investigating the crime. The prosecutor did not advise respondent before his appearance that he might be indicted for the theft, but respondent was given a series of warnings after being sworn, including the warning that he had a right to remain silent.

Provision of § 22 of the 1950 Organic Act of Guam that the District Court of Guam "shall have such appellate jurisdiction as the (Guam) legislature may determine" held not to authorize the Guam Legislature to divest the District Court's appellate jurisdiction under the Act to hear appeals from local Guam courts, and to transfer that jurisdiction to the newly created Guam Supreme Court, but to empower the legislature to "determine" that jurisdiction only in the sense of the…

Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, 431 U.S. 209 (1977), was a US labor law case where the United States Supreme Court upheld the maintaining of a union shop in a public workplace. Public school teachers in Detroit had sought to overturn the requirement that they pay fees equivalent to union dues on the grounds that they opposed public sector collective bargaining and objected to the political activities of the union. In a unanimous decision, the Court affirmed that the union shop, legal in the private sector, is also legal in the public sector.

The federal enrollment and licensing laws, under which vessels engaged in domestic or coastwise trade or used for fishing are "enrolled" for the purpose of evidencing their national character and to enable them to obtain licenses regulating the use to which the vessels may be put held to pre-empt Virginia statutes that in effect prohibit nonresidents of Virginia from catching menhaden in the Virginia portion of Chesapeake Bay and that bar noncitizens (regardless of where…

Held: instead, that these essentially were questions of fact to be measured by contemporary standards of the community. Id., at 30-34 . The instant case presents the issue of the constitutional effect of state law that leaves unregulated the distribution of obscene material to adults, on the determination of contemporary community standards in a prosecution under 18 U. S. C. § 1461 for a mailing that is wholly intrastate.

Held: however, that the relief ordered by the District Court was inadequate.

Respondents, Mexican-Americans, brought suit against petitioners, their unions and their employer, a common carrier that employs city and over-the-road ("line") drivers, claiming that their rejection… Held: The Court of Appeals plainly erred in certifying a class action and in imposing classwide liability on petitioners. Pp. 403-406.

1. The Federal District Court's legislative reapportionment plan for Mississippi's Senate and House of Representatives held not to embody the equitable discretion necessary to effectuate the standards of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in that the plan failed to meet that Clause's most elemental requirement that legislative districts be "as nearly of equal population as is practicable." Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 577, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 1389-1390, 12…

Held: that in this intergovernmental context, the two classic preconditions for the exercise of equity jurisdiction assumed new dimensions.

Held: however, that the Younger rule “or the principles of equity, comity, and federalism” for which it stands, 411 U. S., at 575 , did not require the dismissal of that § 1983 suit in view of a proceeding then pending before a state Board of Optometry, since it was alleged, and the District Court there had concluded, that the Board’s bias rendered it incompetent to adjudicate the issues. 411 U. S., at 575-577 . 9 The…

Moore v. City of East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494 (1977), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that an East Cleveland, Ohio zoning ordinance that prohibited Inez Moore, a black grandmother, from living with her grandchild was unconstitutional. Writing for a plurality of the Court, Associate Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr.

Where respondent female flight attendant failed to file a timely claim against petitioner airline for violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when her employment was terminated in 1968 pursuant to a later invalidated policy because she got married, petitioner held not to commit a present, continuing violation of Title VII by refusing to credit respondent, after rehiring her in 1972, with pre-1972 seniority, absent any allegation that petitioner's seniority…

In a prosecution for possession of a firearm in violation of the provision of Title VII of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 18 U.S.C. App. § 1202(a), making it a crime for a convicted felon to possess "in commerce or affecting commerce" any firearm, proof that the possessed firearm previously traveled at some time in interstate commerce held sufficient to satisfy the statutorily required nexus between possession and commerce.

Respondent, who left employment with petitioner for military service but who returned after completion of such service and continued in employment until his retirement, held entitled under § 9 of the Military Selective Service Act, which requires an employer to rehire a returning veteran without loss of seniority, to credit toward his pension under petitioner's pension plan for his period of military service. Pp. 583-594.

Petitioner, who was convicted of selling obscene film in violation of California law, contends that portions of the instructions to the jury violated his First and Fourteenth Amendment rights,… Held: The instruction violated no First Amendment rights of the petitioner.

United States v. Ramsey, 431 U.S. 606 (1977), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held the search of letters or envelopes from foreign countries falls under the border exception to the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.

Held: was to be given a “practical rather than a technical construction.” Cohen, supra, at 546 . In giving it such a construction, the Court identified several factors which, in its view, rendered the District Court’s order a “final decision” within the statute’s meaning.

A National Guard officer was permanently injured when the ejection system of his fighter aircraft malfunctioned during a midair emergency. Held: Petitioner's third-party indemnity claim cannot be maintained. Feres v. United States, supra.

Carey v. Population Services International, 431 U.S. 678 (1977), is a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court held that it was unconstitutional to prohibit anyone other than a licensed pharmacist to distribute nonprescription contraceptives to persons 16 years of age or over, to prohibit the distribution of nonprescription contraceptives by any adult to minors under 16 years of age, and to prohibit anyone, including licensed pharmacists, to advertise or display contraceptives. The Court held that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not allow a state to intrude on an individual's decisions on matters of procreation which is protected as privacy rights.

Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois, 431 U.S. 720 (1977) is a United States Supreme Court case that involved issues concerning statutory standing in antitrust law.

Prior to the decision in Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 93 S.Ct. 2607, 37 L.Ed.2d 419, appellant was convicted of selling obscene sado-masochistic materials in violation of the Illinois obscenity statute forbidding the sale of obscene matter and providing that "(a) thing is obscene if, considered as a whole, its predominant appeal is to prurient interest, that is, a shameful or morbid interest in nudity, sex or excretion, and if it goes substantially beyond customary…

More than 18 months after federal criminal offenses were alleged to have occurred, respondent was indicted for committing them. Beyond an investigative report made a month after the crimes were committed, little additional information was developed in the following 17 months. Claiming that the preindictment delay, during which material defense testimony had been lost, deprived him of due process, respondent moved to dismiss the indictment.

A New York statute provides that if an officer of a political party subpoenaed by a grand jury or other authorized tribunal to testify concerning the conduct… Held: The statute violated appellee's right to be free of compelled self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment. Pp. 804-809. (a) Government cannot penalize assertion of the constitutional privilege against compelled self-incrimination by imposing sanctions to compel testimony that has not been immunized. Pp. 804-806.

In this litigation appellees, individual foster parents and a foster parents organization, sought declaratory and injunctive relief against New York State and New York City officials, alleging that the statutory and regulatory procedures for removal of foster children from foster homes violated the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Respondent enlisted members of the United States Navy and others similarly situated, who agreed to extend their enlistments at a time when a statute provided for a Variable Re-enlistment Bonus (VRB), in addition to the Regular Re-enlistment Bonus (RRB), for members of the Armed Forces whose ratings were classified as a "critical military skill" held entitled to VRB's determined according to the award level in effect at the time they agreed to extend their enlistments,…